Revitalizing Marine oral tradition and Heritage:

: an anthropological exploration of intangible heritage makingin Bagamoyo, coastal Tanzania

Abstract

In this study I explore, from anthropological perspectives, the marine oral traditions in Bagamoyo, coastal Tanzania. Specifically, I examine how the artisanal fishing communities in Bagamoyo experience the marine world and how the ocean appears in their everyday life experiences and expressions through forms of oral narratives such as folklores, traditional songs/artistic narratives, fishing songs, and ritual practices. Drawing insights from the concepts of “lifeworlds” and “ethnooceanography”, I examine how fishers navigate different forms of experiences by looking at the everyday lifeworlds of the fishers in narrating, embodying, and performing the ocean as well as enacting the marine ecological knowledge. Ethnographic findings suggest that the ocean is not only the foundation of the people’s livelihoods in Bagamoyo but rather it stands at the core of how they make sense of their world via oral narratives. They express and experience the ocean world as a key connector between their historical cultural memories and the present encounters informed through tales and proverbs. The marine oral tradition as revealed through ngoma expressions and ritual practices shows how the ocean is viewed as a sacred entity which constitutes the spiritual cultural elements as a cultural space where spirits and human encounter and are entangled with other forms of fishers, existence—while enacting a strong connection between the fishing community and the marine world beyond resource extraction. Marine folklore forms function as media through which the Baganoyo fishing community advances collective memories, controls individual behaviour, evokes moral values and collective wisdom as well as safeguarding the marine ecology. Living along the coastal locale and intersubjectively relating with the ocean world shapes the identity of the people in Bagamoyo and frames their cultural heritage practices as a coastal Swahili community and a culturally plural society resonating the historical encounters from the rest of the world during slavery and colonial trajectories. Conversely, the growing encroachment and commercialization of the ocean and fisheries sector risk the artisanal fishers’ harmony with the ocean and their autonomy in accessing and utilization of key ritual sites, as well as their stewardship in sustainably managing the ocean resources through traditional ecological knowledge.

Date of Award	28 May 2024
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	University of Roehampton
Sponsors	AHRC/Global Challenges Research Fund—University of Roehampton Studentship
Supervisor	Garry Marvin (Director of Studies) & Giovanna Capponi (Co-Supervisor)